Your last session

I think a good way to keep the community active is just to talk about our sessions. And I am curious to see how other 4e games are being done. So I am starting this thread for people to just put a brief synopsis of their last session they played in 4e.

Our most recent sessions branched out a bit. We're running a late paragon tier game where the PC's are the rulers of several neighboring realms faced with an invasion by a hostile devil-aligned power.

While the PC's have been with the politics and preparing for the final battle with the evil queen and laying groundwork for our epic destinies, it was also decided that the best way to deal with one of the potential threats would be to send spies in to investigate... so we created a team of 11th level spies (changeling executioner, human rogue, a half-elf skald, brawler fighter) to actually run through that side-quest and see if we can't get the intelligence our kingdoms need to win the war.

A fair amount of politics, yes. Our biggest issue right now is that we're basically squished between three major power players with even more terrible agendas than the ones of our devil-binding invader.

We've got The Order of the Eye on one side sending pilgrims into our lands seeking converts in order to manifest into the world their 'True God' (i.e. whatever entity from the Far Realm spawned the Beholders). The biggest issue for my character is I've set up my kingdom as the Free Cities where its more or less a liaise-faire democracy (I don't so much 'rule' my kingdom as I do offer sage advice, act as goodwill ambassador abroad and deal with problems too big for any of the city governments to handle on their own) and so I can't actually 'lay down the law' and ban/execute them (they scrupulously pay their taxes and follow the law because gold and the laws of man will all fall away once their 'god' becomes manifest within creation... they just need to achieve 'critical mass' in terms of number of believers). Meanwhile the kingdom of one of the other PC's is a theocracy ruled by the high priest of Kord who has no problem putting heretics to death.

Then we've got what we've come to call 'From Beneath You it Devours'... a Drow Queen who at first seemed relatively benevolent (her primary interest seemed to be mass marketing magic items to gain immense wealth), but whose true agenda has slowly come to light and basically involves wanting to remake the world into her own personal torture garden (she keeps the brains of her past victims magically preserved in jars so she can continue to inflict magical torture on them for eternity and that's one of her LEAST horrific things). All those magic items she's been selling have been cursed and she's been selling magic weapons and armor to both sides of conflicts she's been instigating amongst the surface world for decades and the kicker is the primary curse of those items is that she basically cause them stop functioning/self-destruct at any time she chooses... leaving whoever the eventual victors are (after she's bled them dry of men and wealth by keeping the conflict going) helpless against her forces when she's ready to conquer the surface world.

Our biggest problem here is that this drow queen is literally best buddies from their mutual adventuring days several hundred years ago with the queen of THE most powerful realm on the continent (far bigger than all the PC's realms put together) so we can't just 'go to war' with the drow queen without risking war with her ally (who has not been setup for a fall as of yet either... making it even harder to convince them to go against the drow queen who's not done her realm any harm).

And the most horrifying of all is that we've just learned that this seemingly harmless joke NPC we've been doing 'business' with (who for some unexplained reason had a shop in just about every city we ever visited without any real explanation for how) is actually the avatar (or avatars rather) for the Biggest Bad of them all...

One thousand years before the campaign started my PC's ancestor cast a spell that blew the entire planet practically back to the stone age (and his family name is despised even still because of it), but it wasn't the act of a megalomaniacal villain, but a last ditch effort to stop something even worse, an entity that created the gods themselves as part of a grand machine designed to consume all of creation to fuel its true apotheosis.

We learned of this as part of my PC's arc through paragon tier (redeeming the family name), but we thought the entity had been destroyed along with all its works in the conflagration of my ancestor's spell.

We were wrong.

It has survived and for a thousand years has been working in secret to set up the conditions needed to try again.

Wow, that is pretty cool. Beholder God, vs drow queen vs destruction supergod. Or the players dealing with each one at a time. I'm surprised the players just haven't put out signs that read "wanted, brave adventurers to solve all our problems." And just let the sure to come party of adventurers to deal with everything, like any proper ruler.

My last session isn't that interesting I must admit. My party is right now on a side quest to see whats wrong with a city of dancing feet in the feydark that is the source of a minor pixie feylord's power. (The pixie freezes off the feet of children that track snow into the house by making them dance in the snow without any boots on. She then takes the feet and makes them dance in her city slowly draining the children's life energy throughout their life to fuel her own power. She got this ability from the Korred.) I made a rhyme and wrote a long background handout for her.

Just had my sunday session, they landed on the mushrooms and headed north to the city entrance. It was kept close by a immovable rod so the Pixie and one of the fighters (Everyone in the party used a wish earlier to gain shrinking powers) squeezed through the crack in the door made when they tred breaking it open. The fighter got almost squished by the dancing feet but grew himself and openned the gate.

Then the party spent two real life hours arguing about whether or not they should help the evil feet stealing pixie or not. One one hand she freezes the feet off of children so she can drain the life from them. On the other hand, she would be a powerful ally in their war against hell. The argument eventually got sidetracked as the drow fighter got accused of hiding information about a devil's name. He then deflected by accusing the human fighter of holding information. The human fighter then revealed he had made a deal with a devil a while ago and his soul was at risk and he had just recently made another deal with the devil agreeing to get his soul released if he gets the devil ten more souls by executing them with a soul stealing dagger.

Eventually the party decided to just try to get the evil pixie feylord (who was a follower of the queen of air and darkness) to just steal devil feet. SAtisfied they went on and ambushed a sleeping Korred and quickling. They spared the quickling in return for it getting their boss. Turns out the Korrds had rebelled against the feylord while she was fending off a devil attack.

Anyway the leader came and the party's pixie rogue noticed a frozen hicky that seemed to be the likely source of the Korred leader's control over the feet granted by the pixie feylord (because the leader was the feylord's lover) so the rogue made a risky role to try and sneak charge the hicky and destroy it. The Pixie critted it and broke the Korred's power. She (The Korred leader) was then immediately defeeted by the feylord who had instantly regained her power.

The party convinced the feylord to help them in their war with hell an she agreed.

(FYI the party is neutral and evil aligned, that are fighting hell, the 'greater evil'. And are made up of a pixie follower of the queen of air and darkness, an escaped Drow slave, a Drow bounty hunter secretly hunting the escaped drow slave, an ex-mercanary human who sold his soul to a devil to keep from being hanged after having an affair with a nobleman's wife, on their wedding day, and a Tiefling Vampire from the time of the Tiefling Empire who's undeath has rendered him apathic and he sticks with the party because the Drow slave has infernal chains he wants back. Its a disfunctional party that gets funny a lot. They are always wastin their APs out of encounters just to spite each other and trying to kill each other secretly. but are otherwise forced to work together due to a contract they signed promising to wage war against hell.)

I think a good way to keep the community active is just to talk about our sessions. And I am curious to see how other 4e games are being done. So I am starting this thread for people to just put a brief synopsis of their last session they played in 4e.

Well, I could write about it, but i think it would be better if you just listened to it.

Yeah, I'm starting a Podcast!!!! we are abut 5-6 sessions into it. Now we just need to start a site and host us some podcasts! The Standard Action Club Podcast is coming soonish to an MP3 Player near you! 4E all the way.

While he party waited and rested some pixie children that Lacuna had taken under her care and left in Pessing, a city they had met earlier, got bored because Pessing had mostly emptied out for the war. And teleported themselves to Lacuna. They greatly annoyed Ringwe who was not fond of spring pixies and wanted to capture them, and make their feet dance for her and drain their lives. But Lacuna stopped her though this caused some tension between them. Soon after a demonic angel arrived (A creature stitched together from multiple demons into the rough shape of an angel and imbued with radiant energy) to tell the party to stop an infernal operation in the area. As apparently an operation by Levistus was being carried out near here though it got taken over by Geryon.​​The party left out and decided to try to take their wagons and horses with them. Though the mountain was tall and steep and when considering the wind and snow and cold, would be extra difficult. At the first cliff, a fifty foot Drop Balok, one of the Drow, decided to search for an easier way down however he slipped while searching and was almost blown off the cliff side but he managed to catch himself and pull himself back up.Turoth the human fighter decided they hould build a huge ramp instead and since it was the fey wild, even here trees were in plenty. So he took Balok's extra axe and started chopping however he almost dropped a tree on himself but jumped uut of the way just in time, Eventually they managed piece by piece to get the ramp built and lowered. Eventually after piecing it together they had a ramp and were able to carefully slide the wagons and horses down it. They repeated this with other cliffs until they reached a hillside on the mountain that was littered with boulders, trees and rocks making it impassable. They decided to clear it by hand with the pixie, Lacuna, uses pixie dust to make the heavier boulders easier to move and Akmenos the vampire scouting path in the air despite the sun's rays burning at him. After they got through here they were truding along when they were surrounded by angrey bucks including one powerful one calling himself the Prince of the Forest.

Belgos, the other Drow, had killed three deer as part of a deal with a Stygian Wolf to convince the wolf to leave them in peace and the deer were angry about this. However the pixie, who was the only one who could speak to the deer, had poisoned the carcasses with skull rot, a horrible zombie like disease, and told the deer she had poisoned the carcasses to kill the wolf. The Prince accepted this but demanded and apology from Belgos and a Promise never to hunt deer again. Which Belgos gave.

I think a good way to keep the community active is just to talk about our sessions. And I am curious to see how other 4e games are being done. So I am starting this thread for people to just put a brief synopsis of their last session they played in 4e.

We are currently in the final chapter of a 3 year running 4E campaign. I started everyone at 8th level and the party should end up at the top end of 20th when it is all said and done.

Also, I have been cannibalizing much of the WotC published P3 adventure for this last part.

Last session, the party made it through the tomb doors after tricking the statue guardians outside the tomb. Once inside, as the tomb doors were shutting, they realized that they had enemies inside the doors. Flanked by 2 lightning-launching obelisks and facing some very big undead, they scrambled to defeat the enemies. It took them a couple of rounds, but someone finally got the idea to try to disable the obelisks that were frying them pretty much every single turn (they took an OA if a character was within 5 squares at start of turn and this sometimes meant they got hit twice). Once disabled, they were able to destroy two of the three undead and incapacitate the other long enough to duck out of the area to lick their wounds.

This was the most I had damaged the party in a long time. They had come through the last two encounters without taking a single hit point of damage. So I think they got put on notice again that even though they are 17th level and really effective, they still aren't invulnerable.

We had a shorter session because two of the players had some family business so they got there late. So that was all that they did last session (we only played like 2 hours). But they got their short rest and will be continuing through the tomb, ultimately to the portal to the Shadowfell. Which is really kind of funny because the entire campaign was set in the Shadowfell. Then, they had to travel to the mortal world (Material Plane) to investigate some things. Their investigation is leading them back to the Shadowfell, so they will likely be happy to be "home" once they step through the portal. Although they will be in an absurdly remote and unfamiliar region of the Shadowfell. And they will be facing enemies everywhere they turn. And they have to find and defeat the Shadow Dragon. But still, it will be good to be home, yeah?

The party then headed towards the Northeast where the infernal operation was believed to be. They were met by a Kobold messenger from Consatio (long story but an angelic general of He Who WAs that the party recruited to aid in the war against hell) who gave them a letter to deliver to Opelia (Another angelic general of He who was, who was now a robin hood like demi-goddess of female thieves and pirates, and a pirate herself that sailed both the oceans of the feywild and the prime material plane. And who the party is currently seeking to recruit )The party found tracks of Infernal Patrols and decided to form an ambush, however when Akmenos the vampire was scouting he got sighted by a patrol of legion devils led by some Dreugar. Akmenos fearing the sun decided rather then to turn into a bat and run, to try and surprise them with a sudden ttack. Transforming himself into a powerful biestial form he rushed upon them and while they were still stunned he managed to slay many of them and wounded A Druegar Shocktrooper. The slaughter ended when the Shocktrooper expanded into a giant form, however Akmenos was still able to win the day after a short yet intense fight. They learned from a Dreugar scout they took prisoner that Many Druegars and devils led by a trio of Stygian wolves had attacked and taken over a mining operation that had been run by Levistus. Apparently there was a sunsprayer city named Mokabaraka frozen within a glacier. The city was from thousands of years ago during the prime of the Sunsprayer people and was originally founded by a number of Sunsprayer devout who desired to place a city of warmth and life within the unforgiving northernmost reaches of the world, in defiance of the cold. The winter court angered at this insult by the humans worked their magic to shift the whole city into the feywild, and into the middle of the glacier where they were thought to all freeze to death instantly. The dark dwarf said however Levistus discovered that this wasn't entirely true and somehow their souls were still trapped in the ice, and more then that there were thousands of souls more within the ice then there should be and he had been attempting to mine the souls in the ice. However Stygian wolves with Dreugar and Infernal allies were sent by Geryon to take over the operation and mine the souls for himself. Additional news discovered was that the wolf Lacuna had infected with skullrot had entered the camp in full throws of the disease and infected a number of dwarves and devils before being driven out and where they all are no one knows.​​So suspecting grave danger the party continued on, and no sooner had they reached the camp then their fears were realized. They were besought by a hoard of skull rot victims, and just to make things worse, the hate tank (An abomination that had been hunting them since they released it from a temple of the Goddess of Freedom in the beginning of the campaign where it was trapped.) chose now to appear and attempt to kill the party more. So the party fled into a tunnel carved into the glacier. The tank slew all the skullrot. Balok managed to slow down the tank and get enough distance to topple a pillar of ice in front of the tank and reinforced the ice with metal bands. This was thought to just slow it down more but instead the tank rammed the pillar and was stopped. When he party checked they saw that the tank was completely immobile now. The tunnel they had fled into were full of crpses strewn all throughout, at least thats what they thought. On closer inspection they saw that half of the devils were asleep.A great sleepiness came upon the party now as well, though Turoth and Balok were able to resist it long enough to drag the party further in. But their hopes were dashed as soon they reached a dead end, and just beyond through the clear ice they saw the frozen city of Mokabaraka. Then they fell asleep. But soon found themselves awake standing in front of the city within a dome of ice, no longer frozen. A wall of ice with a great rift within it being repaired by a number of ebony skinned human workers was before them and signs of a battle all around them as they saw blood and scorched earth though the bodies had been removed. The workers saw them and a call to arms was put out though the party managed to convince the topless priestess that they were not enemies though she did not trust them at all, not surprising considering the party was comprised of two drow, a vampire, an unseelie pixie and a human that was actively collecting souls for a devil.

As it turned out the party had entered unto a sort of dream world made possible by the power of the feywild. All of the frozen inhabitants of Mokabaraca had entered into a sleeping state and in that state they had started a shared dream from the moment they were turned to the feywild by the winter court. No one in the city seemed to realize they were in a dream or had been frozen by an angry winter court. All they seemed to know is their city was within a mysterious dome and had been for over five thousand years. And while within this dome they seemed to be immortal and the power of the dome altered their bodies to match their nature. In truth however the reality was simply while in the dream world their frozen bodies could not age and their naked souls shone through clearly in the shared dream.​​This was how the Priestess had identified everything she needed to know about the party just by looking at them. Some of the party once entering the city went to the library to examine the many thousand year old texts for loss knowledge. While others went searching for a quest to undertake within the city. They discovered that the skull rot dark dwarves and devils that had fallen asleep seemed to remain afflicted even in the dream world and had taken over the city's underground sand quarry. So the party entered the sandmine to deal with them. The pixie and vampire, the latter in its bat form, had chosen to stealth inside and scout it out and find defensive positions. The rest decided to just charge inside. They found they were immediately surrounded by skull rots. Akmenos tried tried collapsing part of the quarry to bury some of the skullrot and succeeded hough he injured himself. Balok found himself quickly buried in skulls that had been hurled at him. He tried using his chaotic force wave gauntlets on the ground at his feet to explode them all off. And predictably collapsed half the quarry and threw himself high in the air just screaming "Worth it!"​​Turoth was upon his specially bred Dire Wolfmutt named Darkhaan which he had not finished training when a rotskull bit the wolf. And caused it to get angry and it hrew Turoth into one of te quarry's pits though Turoth managed to catch himself. Turoth pulled himself out and a Rot Skull Deurgar Shock Trooper that had already been wounded by Akmenos leaped over the pit to reach Turoth but fell short plummeting into the pit. Upon landing its expand power was triggered and it got wedged becoming completely helpless.​​Lacuna Had charged headlong into the thickest mass of Skullrots taking out a few but was getting overwhelmed. And seemed about to bite the dust herself when the party was surprised by a large Homunculous made out of a brightly shining metal that was covered with thousands of glowing runes. The homunculous was wielding a spear and began dispatching the skullrots left and right. Soon the battle was won. The Homunculous revealed himself as (redacted) He was created by runepriests of Erathis and he himself was a runepriest. Every rune on his body was a spell and the runes were the source of his own life and power. He was sent out thousands of years ago to save Mokabaraka from its frozen fate caused by the winter court. However alone he could just not penetrate deep enough into the magical ice that helphysically cd the city. It wasn't until later when the devils and later the devils work was taken over by the infernal dwarves that he saw his chance to reach the city though they represented a new threat. He was planning himself how to stop them when the skullrot disease struck and devastated the infernal ranks, and soon after the adventurers showed up and entered lo chased by the hate tank. He chose to follow them at that point, when he saw they had all fallen asleep decided to put runes of warming on them to keep them from freezing to death than put a rune of dreaming on himself so he could enter the dream world and investigate since he wasn't physically capable of sleep himself.​​So the party returned to the main temple of Mokabaraka and entered into discussion, Lacuna however entered private discission with a Pristess named Koko who was undergoing a painful purification rite which she regularly undertook to keep herself from becoming lethargic and apathic like most of the city. Lacuna was concerned about whether she was good or evil and what to do and how important her loyalties to the queen of Air and Darkness were and how much she owed her and her own guilt at many mistakes she made. Koko was understanding and tried to help best she could, comforting Lacuna and told Lacuna it might be possible to help her undo some of the corruption her Queen had suffered at the hands of the chained God's gift. The fragment of the heart of the Abyss called the Black Diamond. That the devils who had once guarded the Chained God's prison might know. Lacuna seemed to take comfort in this.​​The rest of the party however was learning about the nature of the city when a tall and barbaric looking woman with homely features entered the court. Her hair was flowing blood, her flesh was dark with tormented hateful faces showing beneath the skin, her breasts bore the most horrific visages and her naval seemed to be a portal to a chaotic abyss. She wore only a skirt of bloodied spikes and was clad in bone sandals. She introduced herself as Odistrum, also a stranger and demanded the city hand the party over to her or suffer her wrath. Then she left. The Party realized that she must have been the hate tank. And earned that there was an enchantment of peace upon the temple that negated any violence done. The party decided to try to wake and leave the city drawing the hate tank away. The High Priestess begged the party to keep their intention secret as the city did not realize they were in a dream and over the thousands of years many children were born. The children were souls without bodies and if they tried waking or worse the city was thawed, they would all perish. The party agreed but suggested they might try to find a way to solve that dilemma. As all those bodiless souls were just too tempting for the devils.

Gygax the Living Homonculous told the party that he knew how to place runes of awakening that would wake them up. And he dd. First Balok and then volunteering went Belgos. Belgos however turned out to be a bounty hunter sent by the Drow to recapture Balok and deciding this would be when Balok was most vulnerable took a point blank shot at Balok's back that was stopped by his armor. The arrows shattered into a doesn't phantom spiders and he attacked. Gyga managed to wake up the whole party quickly though and was quickly subdued with the help of a unit of unveiled soldiers that had arrived while the party slept led by a halfling bard.

The Unvieled soldiers were the ones originally sent to take out this operation before the party was diverted. The party decided to head to an unvieled digging operation they knew about thanks to intel Ringwe acquired from some bramble fairies near the operation so the party headed southwest, where they were collecting Feywild dirt to use in the creation of golems in hope of seeing if the golems would make viable hosts for the souls of Mokabaraka.

It was a two week journey but in the middle of the journey they found themselves in a gentle but dense snowfall in an area filled with thick thorny bushes with bright yellow flowers. Lacuna the pixie heard a singing under the sound of the wind and pointed it out to the party. Eventually the party, fearing the singing was enchanted convinced the voices to stop in return for having their bard sing. However after a few more days they found they were travelling in circles. the voices responded they just wanted to keep the party for a little while longer but Turoth got angry and poured out the hellfire decanter onto some of the bushes. The voices screamed angrily and Turoth found Bushes suddenly growing at his feet trying to entangle him. But he was able to with brute strength rip himself free. Lacuna tried to calm the voices saying she was a servant of the Queen of air and darkness but this seemed to only make the voices angrier however Turoth threatened to burn the whole area down so the voices said they could leave.

This proved to be a trap though as once night fell and the party slept the snow fell so densely they couldn't even see their own outstretched hands. And when they awake they were in complete darkness despite the day plus still blinded by the snow. So the set out the drow leading the way however he almost ran into a wall of thorns then he finally stopped and the snow, which proved to be just an illusion, stopped as well. And the group found themselves in a dome of these yellow flowered thorn bushes so thick the light would not pass through. Gygax the homuncolous tried forcing his way through and seemed to succeed but only found himself exiting opposite of where he left and still in the dome. The party was trapped! The voices sang one last time informing the party they were Gorse and enemies of the queen of air and darkness. Lacuna at this automatically realized what they were. Gorse fairies being tiny childlike fairies three inches tall that live in huge fields of thorny yellow bushes that protect them. The Gorse don't travel at all and to keep new blood injected they are known to disorient adventurers wandering nearby so at night while the adventurers sleep they can steal new blood into their lines.

The party eventually reached their destination. However a battle was in full swing. Devils led by an ice devil was attacking the unveiled camp. Two ballista emplacements were keeping the devils at bay but not for long. The party therefore sent their forces in a southern sweep to draw the enemy rearguard that was while the party itself punched through the remaining northern flank of the rear guard and attacked the Ice Devil himself. The Ice devil himself proved to be already in a foul mood from having to be around so many weaker devils and was not made any happier by the party. And seemed ready to put up a devastating fight. But an unexpected arrival by the Xzenk Goblins changed this. The Goblin Priest leading the goblins kept the devil in a continual daze while Turoth kept him prone and unable to move around he was quickly dispatched. The party readied to fight the Xzenk Goblins but learned from the priest that this time they were not here to fight the party, but to join them. ​​The Goblin Priest, whose name was Jozen revealed that after the laast humiliating defeat at the hands of the party Xzenk grew obsessed about finding a way to defeat the party and was approached by the devils offering to form an alliance. Xzenk accepted and began to sell off the souls of the goblins with abandon. So Jozen took goblins loyal to himself and fled through a portal to reach the party for aid fearing soon Xzenk would turn his eye towards the whole lair.​​Jozen himself was actually a follower of Erathis and a bit of a Maverick within his lair. Preaching a change from the worship of the demonic deities they normally worship and instead proporting the worship of Erathis in return for the power to expand and spread their own civilization. That is why he had originally allied himself with Xzenk, whom he saw as an outlier and a potentially powerful ally in this cause. And he was until the party killed Xzenk and nailed his body to a door.​​So the party accepted the Goblin's offer of aid and entered the Unvveiled camp.They were at first off put by the mechanical and almost cacatonic actions of the unveiled soldiers. But after Balok assaulted a tavern wench, who was the first person they met who acted normal, and Balok then got lashed by the unveiled and stuck inside the stockades. During this they were met by the leader of the encampment, a woman named Tinia who was the 'moulder'. Apparently she was an angel of love, one of the few surviving angels of love that didn't become a precursor to succubi or get tortured and raped to death or become a Deva. She was badly damaged emotionally but apparently was in charge of creating golems out of the feywild earth and bringing them to life, turning them into humans somehow. And nearly every soldier here was made by her and implanted with a soul taken from a devil and stripped of all but its combat knowledge and base functionality. Lacuna sasked about the strange makeshift angel they met earlier and learned that it was actually a creature made from multiple demons stitched roughly together to form something that looked like an angel. Ruficel apparently did this to remind himself of Baathor.​​So the party went to sleep in a barracks and each member awoke with a tiny pixie child with a tear stained face, staring into theirs.

Two encounters and not 1 point of damage? They were really overdo. Those obelisks were a grand idea. Looking forward to your future posts!

Well, I definitely took them through a roller coaster since then.

I think I missed posting on one of my previous sessions, so I'll get the story up to speed.

After entering the tomb (past the lightning obelisks) the part ventured further into the tomb. Their exploration brought them into a huge chamber. In the middle of one end of the chamber was a pool of water that was frozen solid. Inside the ice appeared to be a large statue of a winged humanoid. At the other end of the chamber was an arcane circle which was immediately apparent to the highly trained Bard in the group as a portal circle.

As the group moved down to investigate the portal, a couple of undead shuffled out of the small crypts that led off of the sides of the chamber. So, they decided to "quickly dispatch" this "minor nuisance" before investigating the portal any further.

Unfortunately, the undead turned out to be harder to handle than they anticipated AND after 2 rounds of fighting them, the winged humanoid statue turned out to be a corrupted angel, bound to the crypt and ordered to destroy any who attempted to pass through. And the angel had minions to summon. So the party found themselves fighting on two fronts. The undead wishing to make a meal of them and the angel of vengeance bent on destroying them for trespassing.

It is a bit unfortunate for them that they didn't continue to investigate the portal at the other end of the chamber as they could have gotten out of there simply by activating it (by holding a skull of a long dead being, there were a bunch in the alcoves near the portal). Instead they had a 2 hour combat wherein I brought every party member to being bloodied, the Warden had used about 3/4th of his healing surges, and the Vampire, Psion, and Bard/Swordmage were completely out of daily powers. So I really pushed them hard on that one.

It also was enough to get the party into 18th level...

Then, we reconvened last Friday to continue the story.

Having come through the portal, the discovered what seemed to be the actual tomb. In this large area was an altar and beyond the altar was a ball of radiant fire floating in the air and what looked like a blackened skull at the center of the ball of fire. The Bard/Swordmage went foward to see what the fire was all about (that's how he noticed the skull at the center). But he learned that if get got within 4 squares of that skull, he'd be taking fire damage well above any resistances or reductions he could handle. The Vampire wanted nothing to do with the radiant fire and stayed well away. The Warden, even with his "mountain of hit points" knew that it was too much for him to walk in and take. Then, the Psion came up to the altar and started looking at the symbols. He recognized them as holy symbols to the Raven Queen. And since he was a devout of the Raven Queen, he said a quick prayer in her honour.

That was when the skull telepathically spoke to the Psion and told him to "send in his minion". So he sent his Dream Form in to the flame. It worked perfectly and he was able to bring the skull out of the fire. So I chalked one up to the party actually thinking about a solution before just looking at numbers on their character sheets. The obtained the skull of Sartine (a powerful orb artifact) and it told them they had to travel through the portal to the Shadowfell and find the Soul Vortex. Only then could they stop the disruption of the process of life and death in the mortal realms. Sartine did not know what to do once they got to the Vortext, only that it was the key.

As they were investigating further to see if there was anything else in this tomb they needed, they came across a large room with a 20 foot tall obsidian obelisk in the middle. On it was the word "Shadow" written in Draconic. On the floor were several letters of the Draconic alphabet. And there were also the Elemental Fire creatures there that were trying to kill them.

Then, in what scientists are calling "the most unlikely thing since Syd finding his glasses", they party started using tactics other than "Kill them all first!"

It started when the Pixie Vampire flew around an enemy and attacked from the far side so that she could push them back onto one of the Draconic symbols on the floor. They saw that it activated something in the floor (there was a pressure plate). At that point, the Bard examined the word on the obelisk and found the corresponding letters on the floor. They systematically used their powers to push, pull, and slide the enemies (and their own movement) to get someone standing on all of the necessary letters at the same time. In 2 rounds, the obelisk was lowering into the ground and the party only had to hold off the (now very angry) Efreet for 1 round as the obelisk lowered and the portal to the Shadowfell opened.

They made it out, but not before I had bloodied half of the party and they had spent a good portion of their resources. Still, everyone loved the encounter and was very engaged throughout the whole thing. The portal took them to a remote place of the Shadowfell and they can see a Citadel in the distance with a huge energy vortex circling above the central tower (very cliche and ominous). And they are headed there now.

The campaign is on a "countdown" now. We have to be completed by the 10th of July. One of our group will be stepping down because he will have other obligations on the Fridays that we play starting in August and my partner and I have vacations planned from mid-July through Labor Day (which means we won't be playing those days). So I've stepped up the pacing (and level advancement) for the remaining 6 sessions. I'm going to narrate many of the "cut scenes" to the players via email between our game sessions. And I will quickly get them to the "grand finale" which will play on 10th July.

Thats a good encounter. Pushing enemies onto the letters was the best part imo. I like seeing clever ideas like that.

It was a much more clever idea than I figured they'd do. There were some statues that were more or less medium humanoid sized. And I made a point to let them know that it didn't look like they were affixed to the floor. And they could have slid them around with a Strength check DC 15. That meant that pretty much everyone but the Pixie could auto-succeed in moving them around.

But they didn't want to wait around for all of that. As soon as the first enemy got pushed onto a letter and they saw it triggered something, they had a plan. The Leader had a power that would prevent the targets from taking any move actions AND it allowed him to slide them up to 6 squares at the start of that enemy's turn. He just had to hit them.

The Leader told the party that he had the three letters at one end of the hall and that someone should try to get the letters at the other end of the hall (3 more). So the Defender, who was right up in the big, bad efreet's face, marked the efreet and 2 of his lackeys, then (in a big surprise to all of us) broke off from them and moved over to a statue. He said, I want to grab this statue and pull it with me. So I told him to roll a Strength check (he got like a 27). So I said you can if you use your Standard action as a Move action. He did, and drug the statue with him and was able to press 2 of the letters at that end of the hall.

This not only set up that part of the "puzzle" but it also drew the efreet and 2 lackeys away from the Controller (Psion) who was looking to get into a position to blast both ends of the hall at a distance.

The Leader then positioned one enemy (on its turn), then the second enemy (on its turn). His turn came up and he moved to the 3rd letter at the far end of the hall. Then, when the third enemy subject to his power came up in the initiative, the Leader slid him over the appropriate letter and the obelisk started to lower into the ground, opening up a portal to the Shadowfell.

This was in round 3 of the encounter. It took a full round for the obelisk to drop into the floor and open the portal. The characters systematically and tactically entered the portal with the Defender holding back the big, bad efreet. He dropped through the portal last and they were out!

It was the most awesome tactical execution of a plan I've seen in a long time. I was impressed and told them so.

In the end, they only ended up killing 1 of the enemies. But they had bloodied the rest of them. And honestly, given 3 more rounds, they likely would have had them all dropped because the Vampire was rolling some big damage that night.

Wish my party did stuff that clever. They prefer to just run away, mutilate enemies and roll intimidate or just make everything fall down. Then again, their last 'clever' idea they had was to infect the enemy with highly contagious zombie plague. So its probably for the best.

The party learned that mouse had been killed by the hate tank sacrificing himself to save the child pixies. The hate tank had apparently went to Pestilence to find Eragoth who still lay in a coma and kill him though the pixies describe him as being 'devoured'. Comforting the children it was decided to bring them along. Lacuna learned from the Angel of Love that Ruficel had lost contact with the hate tank. The angel of love then gave her day's power to put a protective kiss on each of the pixie children.

The party than decided to head to the Bramble Fairies Bramble Woods just a few hours south of the camp. There they were initially assaulted by a multitude of Bramble wizards riding a behemoth taking cover behind its spikes and two porcupine riding Bramble Knights. The Brambles have a strange love for strange mounts and used them to great effectiveness though this proved their undoing in this fight. Though Lacuna was able to strike an uneasy truce with their mounts. And the mounts didn't participate in the fight anymore after their riders were slain.

So after Turoth took one of the bramble fairies souls for his dagger the party went deeper into the forest planning to somehow subjugate the brambles. After falling to a clever trap where a charm spell on a gold coin led them into a brush of brambles they came upon a circle of bramble bushes with Tiny Gorse impaled in sport. The Bramble fairies loved such sport. Eventually the party came to some Bramble Wrestlers and challenged them to a wresting match. Lacuna stopped many attempts at cheating while two two fighters wrestled two three inch bramble fairies who turned out to be pretty difficult foes though in the end they prevailed and the brambles signed a contract. The Brambles however signed the contract with no intention of following through and the contract transformed into a terrifying angel, its head had four faces a man's in front, a lion's in the back and a bear and eagle on either side, it had six long wings and six arms each arm wielding a sword of fire, ice or lightning. It had nno legs instead it floated between two transfixed wheels spinning and whirling one one within the other that themselves floated in the air. And the entire being from the wings, to the arms to the body was covered in eyes. The creature demanded that the Bramble fairies who signed follow the contract. When they refused, one fell dead. When it asked again, the rest agreed frantically.

Then the angel returned to its form of a contract.

The party moved on but managed to get lost as they sought out the strongest bramble fairies and ended up in a clearing of sorts in the woods, interrupted by patches of thick large monstrous looking bramble bushes that beneath they saw concealed treasure. It was getting late and they were getting tired so they decided to sleep right here and in the morning the yfound themselves wrapped up by thorny vines and their blood getting drained by elder bloodthorns.

The party defeated the bloodthorns with some help from a ranger named Meat who showed up with a band of Gorse. Though Turoth set everything on fire with another poorly thought out use of the hellfire. But they learned Meat was here to save some Gorse captured by the Bramble Fairies. So the party let him tag along.

The party was then ambushed by a bunch of bramble wizards who used their magic to manipulate the Brambles to act as an obstacle. But the party was able to defeat them and interrogated one to learn that they had been paid in mounts by the Small Point, a member of the Point family that has a monopoly on the trade of mounts with the Leanansidhe, the unseelie fey lord that Lacuna's family is in service to. And in fact Lacuna and Small Point had a history. Well Lacuna felt betrayed at this and confronted Small Point. Small Point informed her that her party was stealing souls and life energy from the Bramble Fairies, which was not a nice thing to do.

Well it turns out that Small Point had been touched by an act of kindness by Lacuna in their youth and had turned his Rade around working to abandon the unseelie court's ways. Small Point agreed to forgive the party their transgressions if they gave up the dagger and the souls sealed within. Turoth and Balok were unwilling and attacked Small Point. They were beaten and lost the dagger.

The next day the party decided to head further on to Fat Wing, the leader of the Wing Rade. (Rade being a group of fairies) who was considered the strongest of the bramble fairies and held the Gorse Captives. Well they found the last of the Gorse grounded and being hunted by Bramble Fairies astride Gricks, far realm mounts gifted to them straight from the Queen of air and darkness.

The party killed them and saved the few Gorse survivors then went on to challenge Fat Wing to a wrestling match as they heard she was a great wrestler that never turned down a match and rode a cyrahydra she subdued herself as a personal mount. Upon arrival they learned that this was mostly a lie. She just had her hydra eat anyone who challenged her to a wrestling match than claimed to have defeated them herself. The party, after meat listened to a long insane rant, got the Hydra to agree if they killed Fat Wing it would join the party. Turned out it lied. And tried to bring the whole bramble tower of ice upon the party's heads by climbing up high on it and shaking it. But Lacuna managed to slow it with an immovable rod long enough for the rest of the party to throw ropes and yank it down. Unfortunetely it fell down right on them, and thus we wait to see if they survived having a hydra fall on their heads.

Wish my party did stuff that clever. They prefer to just run away, mutilate enemies and roll intimidate or just make everything fall down. Then again, their last 'clever' idea they had was to infect the enemy with highly contagious zombie plague. So its probably for the best.

Yeah, I can appreciate that sentiment. Some groups just don't really want to look for that "clever tactic". I played one campaign with a group (a short one) and all they wanted was the fight put in front of them so they could roll dice and "mow through" some enemies. They didn't search for clues, they didn't concern themselves with much of the story. They just wanted to "kill monsters!"

And even though it isn't my ideal campaign (as a DM or a player) I can understand that it is what they enjoyed.

I'm almost at the end of this campaign, I haven't had a chance to update with the "last sessions" for a couple games now, but I will see if I can get some time this week and give a summary of my current campaign.

We are scheduled to be done on July 10th. After that, the group is taking a hiatus (vacations, camping trips, etc.) and my next 4E campaign will start up in September, I believe. I have one player that will be leaving us for sure and a new player joining the group. There is one other player that may or may not be able to keep playing, depending upon his school and work schedule. So I may be down to a 3-person party, which will be fine. I've run campaigns like that before. Besides, I have a couple of "mini-campaigns" I will be running that will take us through the end of 2015 and then (after the Christmas and New Years weeks are past) I will be close to starting a new, longer-term campaign at that point.

The party survived. So did the Hydra or at least a very small part of it. Two heads of the Hydra remained and having lost the heads with most of its knowledge it was not quite ignorant. However the party decided they would rather it speak common so they replaced one of the heads with one of the broken ones that could. Balok named it Talath. Meat left now and the party then returned to Small Point. He was in a Fury over the loss of Mouse to the Hate Tank and was mobilizing his forces, which to the party's surprise included a fortified Purple worm bristling with thousands of bramble fairies manning small ballistas, catapults and bunkers. A mask was on the Worm so it burrowed holes slightly bifgger then its body so the brambles riding it would noot get squashed. But the party convinced inm to let thwem handle it as The Hate Tank would sow discord among the army of Brambles and their mass numbers would turn against each other and be rendered useless. A small number with great power was ideal for this. Agreeig Small Point mentioned there was an elven warrioress imprisoned in storage somewhere. From a long time ago. The party decided to revive her and enlist her aid. She turned out to be an elven Princess named Amagi from the islands Kara-Tur in the Prime Material Plane. She agreed to go with them. They decided to head to a camp run by a Vampire Muse of the LeandeSidhe, the house Lacuna belonged to. This camp acted as a drop off point for beasts going to the Bramble Fairies. It was run by a Muse named Puz'ilia. A rather minor member of the house. The party hoped to get some protection from the Hate Tank's psychic attacks from her. Upon arrival they found that one of the Queen's elite squads specially tasked with defending her eight faceted gem. Themselves known as the black diamonds and wearing black diamond armor,

The party got through them and approached the Muse where, after being overwhelmed by the atmopshere in her tent, were unable to actually talk to her and fled her bedroom. Outsiide Balok got annoyed by the attitude of one of the Black Diamonds, a warrior named the Facet of Power and Balok through a javelin at him hitting him with the back of the javelin. This started afight and the party won, though four of the diamonds escaped,one had her su\oul taken by Turoth. And the last was kept their prisoner. When each dies they become a small black diamond shaped like the 8 faceted gem of the Queen's. Unfortunetely when the Facet of Evil was killed he put a spell onto Amagoi tghat turned her into a gem as well.

After this like right after they find that Ringwe has appeared. But before they could react Lacuna went crazy shouting that her queen was calling to her and she touched the gem and vanished. Lacuna found herself in a lovely garden. Surrounded by plains of ice and with a sick looking yet utterly black sky. Not so much black as completely empty. She and Amagi found in the center of the garrden a pale skined eladrin with dark hair and sharp features painting while humming to herself. She seemed to be painting the garden but the paint would vanish in moments after being laid down so it was hard to be sure. After a long conversation Lacuna learned that she was the last remnant of the Queen's soul and everything she was before the gem corrupted her, cast into a dead universe and kept alive only by the will and power and belief of her sister Titania. She said that Lacuna's belief in her was new and invigorating and responsible for the garden growing around her. But she asked Lacuna to stop but Lacuna refused so instead she asked Lacuna to stop the Queen's evil acts the best she can. And told her that the Queen and Asmodeus were in competition for the heart of the Abyss and its fragments. She also told her that Ringwe had een corrupted absolutely by the Infernal Life force they had given her to drain in place of the life force of children she usually preferred. But that the corruption from both the devils and the queen could be removed if they could first make her again the weeping fairy and bring her a hope that was not tainted by evil. After this the party was attacked by an apacalypse spell called the shard of Uralinda sent by the Queen to kill them and stop this interference. The party won and decided to rest in the garden as it was,they learned, out of time and when they returned to the prime material plane they would return to the moment they left. After this the soul of The Queen of Air and Darkness gave Bree, the wood druid, her garden to have inside her snowglobe that held her tree. And asjked Bree to help Lacuna and not sign the contract.

The party then returned to the feywild where they found no time had passed. Dialogue passed between Ringwe and the party and they realized that absorbing the infernal life ebnergy, the party's idea, had somehow caused her to go mad with power lust and the desire to inflict her pain on the rest of creation. Ringwe turned on the muse and the party got the muse to sign in order to help stop ringwe. Ringwe used a large portion of her power though to remove her own name from thge contract and the party entered into combat with her. Eventually the party managed to drain her of all of the power she had left from the queen and the devils until she was the weeping fairy. The party then found she was actually more dangerous as the weeping fairy as the psychic waves from her sorrow managed to incapacitate the whole party except Balok's mount Talath. Lacuna tried through all of this to talk Ringwe down and seemed to be having some effect, when Talath ate her. Accidently as he was going after ringwe. But still this pissed off ringwe and she focused her power on Talath and nearly killed him. And afterwards she felt better and realized that she had cleansed her emotions withthis act. And she started to laugh and that healed the party.Except Balok and Talath.

They managed to convince Lacuna's brother to ally with ringwe and learned that the animals he had been trained were trained to turn on Small Point's Rade when used. Ringwe easily reversed this training and the stated she planned to gather together the seelie forces in her domain. Quash the uncooperative unseelie and aid the party as gratitude. The party sent their entourage of soldiers north to check on mokabaraka. The party then headed off to small point but was quickly attacked by the hate tank. Amagi jumped onto the hate tank and managed to place a blast patch on it damaging its armor and driving it off. They decided to head to the town to resupply.

At the town they learned after a series of unfortunate incidents that for some reason Ruficel had hired the blood brothers to ferry Turoth and his party in one of their ships. The party then decided to teleport to Small Point. After inconsequential discussion he agreed to head to ringwe to convene. And the party decided to take a side path into the forest thinking to tame the great Stag known as the Prince of the Forest who they heard was fighting A scattering of devils there. So they entered the forest, eventually they fought some pain devils defeate d them, Amagi was proving so incompetent her and Balok and Turo got into an argument that lacuna was drawn into. This was interrupted by the hate tank dropping out of the sky and crahing into the lake here the party made their stand and rather easily defeated it. After it was dstroyed they discovered that the hate tank was actually a woman from the dawn war named Zirri who was clutching a fragment of the abyss.

Zirri described her own history at the party's request. She was born during the dawn war. Within the mortal realm of Aurom. She became a knight as soon as possible as was expected of everyone during that long, long war. As a Knight of the Goddess Aurom her battles eventually took her to Ogremoch, there while stopping one of his machinations to devastate worlds she was captured and spet a hundred years being crushed continously beneath the earth. After this desperate and mad with the suffering she agreed to submit to a ritual by ogremoch, using a fragment of the abyss granted to ogremoch in his final days by the great elemental eye to transform her into one of hundreds of Odistraums. Abominations that drove armies to lash out at their allies for the smallest of grievances with mad hatred. They were sent out to destroy everything as one of, not just creation, not just the gods, but absolutely everything. And there was a lull in the dawn war as all factions focused their efforts on stamping out this, one of Ogremoch's last gasps. However Zirri was captured and hidden away by Ruficel so she could be used for his own purposes. He his her in a ruined city of pearl and gold wih a large swirling pillar of golden light and jewels from which emanated a melody so powerful and so soothing it was able to overcome the power of the fragment of the abyss and bring her peace. And the promise of this peace gave Ruficel control over her. Ruficel used her to fight hell yes, destroy devils, devil worshippers and even angels, exalted and wreak havok in the divine worlds within the astral sea that seemed too friendly with hell. She finally was stopped, at least for a time, within a temple of Avandra that was attempting to negotiate the release of undamned prisoners in hell. Zirra wiped out the temple but in the most hallowed place of the temple the priests and priestesses left and desperate turned the gifts of freedom backwards, the Odistraum's power of hate for once working against itself and it was sealed within the temple hallowed for countless ages, guarded by the dead and its location hidden by Avandra herself until it was discovered finally by Ruficel and he had the party release it.

Ruficel was often annoyed by the party's antics and eased his own frustration with the party by letting the hate tank act on its natural nature and hunt the partry on occassion. Until Zirri was exposed to the feywild influenced dream bubble of Mokabaraka which had the effect of making her hate herself. So she persued the parrty after that ignoring all other instruction given by Ruficel. The party kept fleeing instead of fighting so she started to kilk any she could think of that might enrage the party enough to stand and fight. It worked, they fought. They won.

Turoth went off to make a deal with the devil Zazazomething. Trading the fragment of the abyss for his lover's souls but putting in a clause the devil could only have the fragment for six months.

This act broke his contract with Ruficel and he would have lost his soul then to Ruficel but as his soul was already owned by that devil Turoth traded the gem fragment to, the contract had to go find and kill that devil first. So the party argued a lot, got ina fight and a Devil, named Val showed up. She was an infgernal turncoat having abandoned hell to seek redemption and was sent by Ruficel to try and keep the party in line. So with their new companion the party moved on, eventually interrupting some bramble fairies that were in the middle of creating a shadow ooze to 'prank' the devils and beast s fighting. Byut the party scared them away and got a mini ooze familiar as well. Moving on they were shortly ambushed by the ring leader ofr the bramble fairies, that was upset they had ruined her plan. But they slew her quickly and easily and moved on.

The party soon reached a huge battle between the animals of the forest and devils coming out of a portal. They fought, did a flanking maneuver, met a half-elf... storyteller named deerwatcher. Anyway they rallies an anvil and hammer strategy as well, crushed the devils and sealed it before the ice devils entered the foray.

Then they teleported to Ringwe's. Where they learned there was apparently a huge explosion to the north and Ruficel had taken Zirri and left a letter explaining he had taken a number of loved ones of the party to express his irritation at them and to try and force them to keep in line.

The party rested and headed towards Mokabaraka, when they reached there they learned that the Circle of smoke and whispers were responible for the explosion, they had been trying to destroy Mokabaraka and every soul in it as they felt that letting such a cache of souls exist was too risky if the devils got a hold of it. And that the unveiled golems sent there were largely destroyed in the explosion though Tina, the angel of love, was hard at work making more.

Ther party learned that the circle of Smoke and Whispers had two whole cells imported for this job making thirty members here in total.

The party did a lot of questioning and searching around the camp and eventually learned that there was reason to believe the Circle was hiding within a fey blizzard to the northwest. So the party decided to head there, they encountered some minor resistance from telemagic but they eventually reached the Blizzard. They learned the Blizzard was made up of billions of tiny snow sprites, each about the size of a snow flake. And each with a unique name often dozens of syllables long to ensure no one else has the same name as each is as unique as a snowflake. The storm was told by the Circle of Smoke and Whispers to keep out intruders but the party managed to convince the snowflake sprites to let them in. It wqas nice inside, the snow sang, they were fed by fruits and juices provided by the snow sprites as they walked ad so on and so on. Eventually they reached one of the cells.

They stumbled upon the Circle cell currently on break here. A single Dragonborn Primal Elementalist, two human Seekers that acted as snipers and seven Eladrin Rogues that acted as the muscle for this cell. The party started with diplomacy but quickly learned that the Circle were fanatics in their war against Hell. They killed on rumor, levelled cities if they had any reason to suspect at all that they might be working with devils and considered innocents lost no matter how many to be acceptable sacrifices. And int his case Tens of thousands of souls hung in the balance, souls without bodies and free of the edicts of the Prime Evil, that document that dictated how much Freedom Asmodeus and his infernal servants had. If the devils got these souls they could transform them into an army on the mortal plain, and with no mortal empire of note left, they would be unopposed. So the circle decided that they could not risk even the slightest chance that the devils would get their hands on these souls. The entire frozen city of Mokabaraka must be destroyed.

In addition it turned out that the party's repeated association with Devils, especially Turoth's. Was known to the circle and the party had been classified infernal allies, which was a death sentence. The fact the party now had a devil, reformed or not, among them was just fuel to that fire. Val, the devil in reference, tried to prove to them she was truly reformed by disarming herself and stepping towards them, saying they could use any spell they wanted to determine the truth of her claim. The elementalist placed exploding runes all over her body instead and used her as a hostage to get the part to disarm. The party refused for the most part so he detonated her. Bree however had used holy armor to keep Val from being hurt by the explosion.